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Lot Essay

Signed enamels by Antoine Carteret are of great rarity; a pair of portraits by his hand is in the Musée Bernadotte, Pau. According to E. Lemberger, Die Bildnis-Miniatur in Deutschland von 1550 bis 1850, Munich, 1909, p. 136, Carteret was praised by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as an excellent artist.
The scene is after Salvator Rosa's painting of Diogenes going about Athens with a lighted lantern in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man, but never finding one. This scene is rarely found on gold boxes; one was sold at Ball & Graupe, Berlin, 17 December 1927, lot 88, and another one at Christie's, Geneva, 19 November 1997, lot 229.

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